HoC Random Launch Date - 08142007

Five years ago today

Colin James said it best: "...it's been five long years, and I hate you just the same."

Or something like that anyway. I still remember it like yesterday, our usual daily coffee run when Snuffy D questioned Coxxorz and I on why we didn't have a Herd of Cats website and that we should go do that.

I don't think he really expected us to but with a little assistance from Q-Bert, HerdofCats.ca was launched just a few days later.

No one, not even Coxxorz and I, expected us to be here five years later.

But we are and now, randomly, in chronological order, I will share with you some of my favourite stories, series, and events from our five year long (today) archive. Come, browse through some of our best.

Note: for reference, there are 275 pages each with 15 posts for a total of 4125 posts. So I may have missed one. Or two.

August 16, 2007 — Borderlands will ship with four player online co-op. Three days after our launch I picked Borderlands as a game to look forward to. Wow. I had no idea how much this would become a part of our clan when it launched in October 2009.


August 26, 2007 — Ice's adventures with the mad scientists. The first series to appear on the site. I remember this well as I was one of the three witness talking about adding a "bunky" to the cottage. A bunkhouse for kids. Unfortunately Ice heard "monkey" and had already developed secret plans for an underground genetic laboratory by the time we explained his error to him. While there is no bunkhouse, his secret genetic monkey research still continues. For more entertainment we have Day 1, Day 2-6, Day 8, and the followup travesty of his rental vehicle here and here.


September 06, 2007 — The terrorist door. We had always questioned why Rainbow Six Vegas allowed dead teammates to talk to their still living teammates. Until this day. Moricerevek versus the Terrorist Door. We even scheduled a rematch.


September 14, 2007 — Bio of a Team Killer. Okay, so it was me. I killed them. This story may also have had a rebuttal and a followup.


September 19, 2007 — One of my first issues with MS Support. That turned out to be my fault. And who know Half-pint spoke chinese?


October 24, 2007 — Camo Half-pint. There was a lot of pressure in running Herd of Cats. Particularly in the early years.


November 21, 2007 — Let's make sure!. Our first (documented) attempt at helping Stormblade along to his next resurrection. I seem to remember we lost the body.


January 09, 2008 — The HoC Winning Strategy.


January 13, 2008 — MoriceRevek.


February 01, 2008 — Burnout Paradise Lost. Coxxorz' coverage of an average Burnout night. A lot of pictures with "fail" written over them. Standard fair for Herd of Cats.


February 22, 2008 — An inauspicious 70G. I think this was the first time I finished ahead of everyone else in a driving game. I know it will be the last.


April 09, 2008 — Army of Two write up. I include this because I am impressed by how long the post is. Although I do remember enjoying the co-op day it was attached to.


May 12, 2008 — A fond gaming memory. Getting both A Troll and Stormblade with the same grenade in Modern Warfare for the last kill of the map.


May 20, 2008 — Blackwalt tries to play Assassin's Creed. My day off for gaming didn't turn out exactly as planned.


June 05, 2008 — Die Stormblade. Doesn't the title just sell itself? The gaming adventures of Coxxorz, Stormblade and Blackwalt where accidents may have happened...


June 16, 2008 — Hello Lego Marion. Marathon Lego Indiana Jones sessions with Guba. I have never had so much fun being repeatedly hit with a shovel.


July 04, 2008 — Stormblade's camera goes to the cottage. And it's a lot more fun than he is.


August 05, 2008 — Rolly's first photo essay. Nine photos total, eight of them pretty much the same.


August 18, 2008 — My new best friend. Yes it was a shotgun, what else?


Sept 11, 2008 — Herd of Cats Live. We had several attempts at comic strips through out the five years. But it Herd of Cats Live that stuck it out, finding its niche with using our avatars and going from there. The entire archive is online.


September 22, 2008 — Hardwood's message for Stormblade.


November 10, 2008 — Lest we forget... Stormblade's exceptional coverage of a serious subject, Remembrance Day.


November 15, 2008 — Zombie Week. Our lead in to the launch of Left 4 Dead had all the Admins renaming themselves for a week: Stormblood, Corpsorz, Undeadwalt, Q-Brahnz. Some of best Zombie posts topped by Aku's total loss at our Zombieness.


January 06, 2009 — iGuba.


February 02, 2009 — "He is his father's son!". I still have no idea what Guba meant by this but I remeber finding the stash of minfigs and Rolly and I throwing the Emperor's Fancy Hat Party. Right up to the point where Darth Vader closed it down.




March 02, 2009 — The Tornado. I had a lot of other Saints Row 2 stories that were worth picking but it was the post about my attempt to capture a Tornado helicopter and the misery that it caused me that everyone seemed to enjoy.


March 16, 2009 — The periodic table of Xbox games. I remember this as being a lot of work but I also remember everyone's input and the fact that it was picked up outside of the site and drove a lot of traffic to us. I also remember it appearing in the Periodic Table of Periodic Tables.


March 19, 2009 — The first official HoC game. What would Stormblade pick!. I played this for hours and hours...



April 02, 2009 — Swag's date. What can I say. Any story that reaches seventy comments needs to be mentioned. So here, I am mentioning it.


May 06, 2009 — It came from Colorado. Is that not a great graphic? I remember the coverage we gave Stormblade's eminent return: from comics through to a Stormsday countdown clock.



June 10, 2009 — Save Rogue Teammate!. I think this was one of the first Coxxchievements to appear on the site. I liked the hand sketched graphic.


June 15, 2009 — Grumpy Old Troll!. This was the first time A Troll disappeared. We covered it as if he had turned in to a zombie. I remember this being a bit of work and nobody noticing it.


July 10, 2009 — It was a well sealed bottle. Ice was determined to never, ever have his rye leak all over his trunk again.


November 09, 2009 — A tale of two Halo controllers. I remember this being a lot of work, both writing and the assembly of the controller. I also remember rejigging the site to make it a constant promo as the top story for a week. In retrospect knowing my audience that was a bad idea...


December 17, 2009 — "You're here. I'm drinking. I'm not alone. Where's the problem?" While Stormblade didn't like my logic, he couldn't refute it.


January 07, 2010 — Classic moments in HoC video gaming . Making the most of Left 4 Dead's carnival setting. I still laugh whenever I think if this.


January 13, 2010 — The naming of the Catwalk of Hope and Love. There were so many entries for Call of Duty Zombie Mode I decided it was easier to not include any of them. But... with the Catwalk of Hope and Love becoming such an integral part of our site it was hard not to mention its first appearance.


January 14, 2010 — Do you want Stormblade dead? Or are you ambivalent?.


January 27, 2010 — The first appearance of The Pink Menace!. I know! It's one of my favourites too! It stuck with us and he still makes occasional appearances.


March 24, 2010 — The 2009 Pintsie Apathy of the Year Award. I just disqualified myself for this year's by posting this much as everyone who posted on this story got immediately disqualified. This was a quick throw in post that got a tremendous reaction.


March 26, 2010 — Q-Bert's difficulty with Trailers. The whole clan got in on this one and it may have gone on and on.


May 16, 2010 — My love/hate relationship with Coxxorz. This is the 5,195 reasons to hate him based on the Lego Millennium Falcon. Which still isn't finished by the way. The relationship may have cooled off slightly since then.


May 25, 2010 — Swag's in Charge. This one, and it's aftermath are pretty much self explanatory. And if you ever tell him this I will deny it but having his (and Noir's) different view points has made the site better. Well, more varied at least. Varied opinions has always made for better reading. And yes, I deny writing this.


August 17, 2010 — Running out of cream. You would not think running out of cream would make for such an entertaining story. You don't spend enough time around my house... and I am totally okay with that.


September 11, 2010 — Gargle Dragons. Oh my God! Gargle Dragons. From our complete site redesign replacing all the banners through to Coxxorz' Sega Nite Flash, it's hard to explain how much it took over the site. There was even a book cover.




October 13, 2010 — Coxxorz' Official Week of Pizza. How can you not be entertained by Coxxorz working himself up to a coronary? Not only did he write up a different ordering process each day, he scored them by reheating abilty which meant he was having pizza for more than one meal a day! Which totally explains Day 5.


November 10, 2010 — My zombie break up with Graybush.. Not only did my German WWII format Dear John letter get the reaction I had hoped for I had the additional bonus of listening to Graybush tell me about his reaction to reading it. His inability to breath from laughing so hard had his wife so concerned she though he was having a seizure.


September 05, 2011 — The Dead Island Series. One of my favourite writing experiences. From the whole thing about pants, the Single player multi-player, and the lies about someone else finally getting a copy.


July 06, 2011 — Graybush Security Cam footage What else was I going to do with such a low resolution image?


July 14, 2011 — My HoC Cake.



August 16, 2011 — Random Conversation. Unfortunately this is all image so...



January 02, 2012 — Scoring gaming gifts by review score average. I include this due to it's originality and the fact that our scores ended up being so close to each other. The fact that this was a follow up to Merry Chris Mouse was just an added bonus.


March 16, 2012 — Rolly and I skating with Spartacat. I enjoyed the event and the later write up with the spin of a friend calling us for a skate on his rink. The photos capturing Rolly all on his own on the Scotiabank Place Ice were amazing. The whole event was great but it is those photos I will remember.


April 30, 2012 — My HoC graphic for the Avengers. And the disputes it caused. I still can not beleive that Aku has never played online with Hardwood. How can that be after five years? What I have no trouble believing is the fact that only three people managed to go and one of the three wasn't a primary target.

There are just so many random posts that we have made over the years that deserve mentioning. Swag's coverage of the MIGS, the Pintsies, every single Call of Duty Zombie Mode post, RRODs, Half-pint, the sheer number of Reveks, Coxxorz' continual attempts to get everyone to play games on Sega nite (every Wednesday btw), the flash for Coxxorz' Sega Nites, SeanMCR's MW3 coverage, many of the avatar banners that I created, the Adventures of Aku, every single Call of Duty Zombie Mode post, Schrodinger's Cat, SeanMCR's fire, Ermahgerd, Aku's costuming, Lan Parties, random floods, Batman, HoC Random Whatever of the Day, Coxxorz' deals and, yes, even the Black Friday features. I also have to mention the resurrection of Stormblade. The first time. No wait the second time. Or was it the third time? These weren't high points or anything but they were memorable. Each and every time.

And let's not forget the games!

Over the years (all five) there were many games that stood out. Here is a list of the ones that dominated our site and our time...

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
Rainbow Six Vegas
Halo
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Saints Row
Grand Theft Auto IV
Crackdown
Mass Effect
Just Cause
Battlefield Bad Company
Left 4 Dead
History Channel Civil War: A Nation Divided
Call of Duty Modern Warfare
Fable
Call of Duty Zombie mode
Red Dead Redemption
Borderlands
Dead Island
Assassin's Creed
Gears of War
GRiD
Burnout Paradise

I don't know how to say thank you to everyone. For contributing, for reading, for sticking around and being part of the Herd. I appreciate the contributing mainstays but also important to me is the part-timers who pop up occasionally to surprise us and let us know they are still alive, still part of HoC: A Troll, Personal Game Reviewer, Stavr0, Fungster, Dark Nightowl.

I would also like to mention that at the start of HerdofCats we had no idea who Graybush was. Or Hardwood, A Troll, SeanMCR, Rmeas, not to mention anyone else I may have forgotten. Even Personal Game Reviewer was on the outside looking in.

So thank you. Here's to another five years of randomness.